With the development of cloud computing environment, computing devices join the cloud computing environment and become computing nodes in the cloud computing environment. Computing nodes are no longer limited to conventional computing devices like personal computers, but can include mobile devices (e.g., mobile phones, etc.) that access the cloud computing environment wirelessly. In this case, due to participation of a large amount of mobile devices, the conventional cloud computing environment gradually evolves into a mobile computing environment.
Due to its small size, the mobile device is rather limited in various respects such as computing resources, storage resources, power supply resources and the like. When a task requiring more resources is executed on the mobile device, it will levy a heavy burden on the mobile device and even deplete various resources of the mobile device.
Since mobile devices can access various resources in the mobile computing environment via a wireless network, it is desirable to upload a task that used to be executed on the mobile device to the mobile computing environment, execute the uploaded task by virtue of powerful resources in the mobile computing environment, and return a result of the task to the mobile device. In this way, the amount of resources consumed in the mobile device can be reduced greatly, and running of the mobile device is facilitated.
Unlike transmitting data between the computing node and the cloud computing environment via a conventional wired network, the mobile device is connected to the mobile cloud computing environment via a wireless network. Thus, the transmitting data between the mobile device and the mobile cloud computing environment via a wireless network will be subject to more restrictions. Therefore, more factors have to be considered regarding how to judge whether there is a need to upload a task in the mobile device to the mobile cloud computing environment. Existing approaches to offloading a task in a conventional computing node to the cloud computing environment are not applicable to task management in the mobile cloud computing environment and the mobile device.